In mourning slain Spring family, mourners look for the good

By St. John Barned-Smith |
July 16, 2014
| Updated: July 16, 2014 10:12pm

Cassidy Stay, center, the only survivor of the family massacre, leaves with other mourners after services for her parents and four siblings.

Photo By Brett Coomer/Staff

Paul Book, left, Jeremy Morin and Ronny Tubbs place flowers on the graves of the Stay family Wednesday after services at Klein Memorial Park in Tomball. Ronald Haskell has been charged in the family's deaths.

Photo By Melissa Phillip/Staff

Mourners comfort each other outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the services. Hundreds of people attended the funeral.

Roger Lyon's voice caught for a moment as he prayed at his daughter's funeral in front of a crowd of more than 1,000 on Wednesday afternoon.

Her white casket, along with five others bearing the bodies of her husband and four of their children, lay in a line before him, stretching almost the entire width of the sanctuary inside the Mormon chapel on Hafer Road.

"Please bless us that we might know of the good that has come out of, and will come out of this seemingly senseless tragedy," he said.

Church officials said about 1,500 people attended the funeral for the six members of the Stay family, shot to death at their Spring home last week. Cassidy Stay, the couple's eldest daughter, was also shot but survived by playing dead. She called authorities, who eventually cornered the shooting suspect in a nearby suburban cul-de-sac.

Stay, released from the hospital Friday, sat with her grandparents just a few feet from the caskets as church bishop Scott McBride addressed her loss.

"We feel pain and the sting of loss of friends and family. We miss the Stays," he said, standing in front of five oversized black-and-white portraits, smiling images of Stephen and Katie, 39 and 34, and their children, Bryan, 13, Emily, 9, Rebecca, 6, and Zach, 4.

"We can be more patient with each other. We can be more forgiving with each other," he said. "Seek out ways to help each other. I'm confident Katie, Stephen, Bryan, Emily, Becca, and Zach would agree with me."

The family died July 9, after a man who recently had been divorced from Katie Stay's sister arrived at the home, demanding to know where she was. Authorities say Ronald Lee Haskell, 33, then shot and killed the Stays and the four younger children, before heading to Roger Lyon's home a few miles away. Authorities intercepted him before he arrived and arrested him hours later after a standoff.

Community outpouring

The killings made headlines across the U.S. due to their magnitude and brutality, and rent a hole in the family's tight-knit Spring community, but at Wednesday's ceremony, mourners focused on the people the Stays had been and the good things that had come from the tragedy.

Randy Cousins, an uncle, acknowledged the support the family had received from friends and complete strangers.

(After the shooting, supporters donated more than $300,000 in an online fundraiser to help with expenses and provide for Cassidy Stay.)

"If there's one thing we've learned as a family, it is that the world is a good place," said Cousins, who spoke at length about each victim. He said Stephen Stay had first visited Texas years before for his Mormon mission and had worked with Laotian and Cambodian communities here.

Aubrey Westwood, Katie Stay's sister, spoke about her sibling's irrepressible personality, her devotion to her children and her loving nature. "She communicated her love and kindness for everybody," she said.

Stephen's older brothers, Jeff and Roger Stay, said he wanted to be a good provider for his family. "He did a great job of that," said Roger Stay.

"Love at home was not a phrase he hung up on the wall, it was something he lived," he said. "The example they were in their lives, we can live our lives accordingly."

Bradley Foster, a senior church official from Utah who attended the ceremony, reminded mourners that sometimes bad things happen without explanation or reason.

"It's not what happens to us, it's how we handle what happens to us that makes all the difference," he said.

Scouts' tribute

After the service, Cassidy and her family members wept as the caskets were loaded into six hearses and SUVs. Bryan's fellow Boy Scouts, dressed in white dress shirts adorned with purple corsages, accompanied his casket.

Many likely saw a sign - made of ocean blue plastic cups stuck between the links of a chain link fence at a neighbor's home - that read "Stay Strong." A series of ribbons adorned a tree in front of the home. A similar series of ribbons was wrapped around a light pole near the Mormon church.

"It's hard to wrap my head around, when somebody so ensconced in your life like that, they're gone. Hardly a day goes by - there's something every day that reminds me of them," said Thomas Mixon, 47, Bryan's scoutmaster, earlier in the day.

He described the Stays as an "anchor family," whose house was always full with their children's friends. "Katie Stay was adamant about teaching her kids to do better every day," he said.

Haskell has been charged with capital murder. He had been married to Melannie Lyon until their divorce was finalized this year. Lyon had moved to Texas with her children, and Haskell went to California, where his family lived. He had a history of violence against women, according to court records.

Haskell's lawyers say they expect his mental health will play a role in his defense. Prosecutors haven't yet said if they'll seek the death penalty.

Like Mixon, Moriah Davis said she'd known the Stays through church. Stephen Stay had also been her real estate agent, while Davis had taught two of the Stay girls' dance classes.

She's taken comfort in the outpouring of support for the Stays and their friends, she said, like the many notes from her friends offering their condolences and prayers.

"I really believe prayers are real, I think they have real power. And I think we're all feeling that power," Davis said.

But when asked if she would be able to forgive Haskell, she said, "I'm not sure I'm ready to answer that question."